Productivity and quality improvement through the use of an integrated management system

Abstract:

The aim of this study is to present a practical solution to companies for creating
a mechanism whereby the conversion of organisational goals to concrete action
items becomes reality. "Over the years we have seen many senior executives that
believe that they have a well-developed well-understood and articulated vision
that most employees buy into, but without understanding or providing an adequate
mechanism with which to actually accomplish the goals" (Best, 1998: 5-9).
The references made to the concepts of quality and productivity will refer to the
following two definitions respectively:
Quality of Organisation
"As is the case so often in South Africa, it is quite possible to produce a quality
product with a very ineffective and inefficient business process: the penalty that
customers pay is getting a quality product which is totally overpriced in order to
subsidise the inefficiencies of the business process" (Scholtz, 1998: 33-39).
Productivity
"The orientation of any new measures will be less concerned with the volume of
output (such as the number of orders processed) and more concerned with the
value-adding content of work (whether orders are processed correctly the first time
and without delay)" (Hope and Hope, 1997: 191-192).
Tom Peters supports the view taken on these two definitions in his book Thriving
on Chaos (1987:23). Tom Peters is of the opinion that adding value will result
from superior quality of products and in exceptional service and responsiveness to
customers.
Through experience gained in the banking, education, retail and chemical sectors,
the problem of dealing with inefficient processes and not having a single accurate,
timely and comprehensive source of reference information for decision-making,
has been encountered on numerous occasions.